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The Aran Isles: or, A report of the excursion of the Ethnological section of the British association from Dublin to the western islands of Aran, in September, 1857 (Author: Martin Haverty)

chapter 8

INISH MAAN

The Middle Island contains only a few Christian and Pagan antiquities, but these are of extreme interest. Landing at the east side, on a beach presenting the same remarkable appearance as that of Glenaghaun, we first arrive at the very ancient little Church or Oratory of St. Cananagh. It is situated near the beach, among the chaotic fragments of a tumbled-down precipice; many of the cubic masses of rocks which have fallen in confusion around being each much larger than the church itself. In size and masonry this Oratory resembles that of St. Benan. The doorway, composed of large stones, one of which forms the lintel, is only from 19 to 20 inches wide, and the roof had been evidently formed of overlapping stones. There is a holy well close by, and a saint's bed or grave with three small round stones, like some which are frequently found on these tombs, upon it; while a large flat stone with a hole in the centre stands as a headstone. The St. Cananagh to whom this church is dedicated was, according to tradition, a St. Gregory, and some will have it that he was Pope Gregory the Great. The name is also preserved in Gregory's Sound, which separates the large from the middle Island, and in the Church of Gregory or Cananagh in Connemara.7

The principal Pagan antiquity on the Middle Island is the great fort of Dun Conor, or Conchovar, which is of more solid masonry than Dun Ængus, and has escaped the ravages of time and dilapidation much better. Mr. Wilde having collected his party in the interior, explained the character of the fort, and read to them some extracts from Dr. O'Donovan's notes on Aran made for the Ordnance Memoir. This fort is oval in shape, the long diameter of the interior being 227 feet, and the shortest diameter 115 feet. On one side the steep precipice on which it stands rendered any outer circumvallation unnecessary, but the remainder is surrounded by a strong outer wall, and the passage to the entrance

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leads through a square enclosure like an advanced work, that must have added greatly to its defensibility. The walls, where not broken down, vary from 17 feet to 20 feet in height; there were two flights of steps to the parapets; and in the interior are a great number of ruined cloghauns. On the subject of these cloghauns Dr. O'Donovan made some interesting observations. He said they were used as habitations to a comparatively late period. Some of the islanders still built small houses for domestic purposes in the same style; and he was informed that in a neighbouring village on that island there was a family still living in a cloghaun or stone-roofed house. He said it often required some examination of the stones and of the mosses on them to enable one to distinguish between the old and the modern cloghauns.

On this island are also the ruins of a church dedicated to the Blessed Virgin, and of another, very rudely built, and now nearly destroyed, called the Church of the Seven Kings' Sons. Near the latter are the aharla, or grave, and the holy well of the Virgin, St. Kenerga.

While the party were collected within the Fort of Dun Conor, and the Provost occupied the chair, a vote of thanks was passed by acclamation to ‘Martin Haverty, Esq., the Reporter of the Proceedings of the Excursion.’